The Changing Room: Selected Poetry of Zhai Yongming

Fireworks and working girls
They’ve danced with abandon
Descending into loneliness in the end

Confucian moralists wouldn’t agree:
These explosions in the heavens are a natural thing
We watch as we please reflect as we please
All has been illuminated corners once overlooked

If my will could ascend to the sky
I’d want to go to pieces too
In the quest for love I’d dance a proud dance
Anyone might surrender to lust beneath the moon
Even the moon adores its own ecstasy

If it wer...